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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26633410">Loose Threads</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/XxmaniacxX/pseuds/TheEternal'>TheEternal (XxmaniacxX)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Kiss, M/M, References to God(s), they rescue a dog ok</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:54:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,867</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26633410</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/XxmaniacxX/pseuds/TheEternal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After The Wrath of the Lamb, Will is no longer sure how to feel about Hannibal.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Loose Threads</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A distant house, reminiscent of Will’s Wolftrap residence. The city was an hour away and the neighbours were far and few. Quiet to a fault. They probably hadn’t even noticed them moving in, as the previous owners matched their physical descriptions. They had lived in the house for 10 years, bought off the land 12 years ago. No Lecters, no Grahams. Just the same lovely men down the road as it had always been. Foolproof plan.</p><p>This idyllic state was a fragile mirage, shattered from simply existing.</p><p>On one of their monthly trips to the fishermen’s, they’d encountered a man abusing a dog. It goes without saying that Vivaldi - Hannibal had been humming Summer when they walked past the alley - was taken to a veterinary and then home, where he wagged it’s messy black tail at them all day.</p><p>But the dog hadn’t been the problem, neither killing the man who had laid a hand on him. It had felt righteous. A high that wore off impersonally. </p><p>The entire experience had swallowed Will whole. </p><p>There hadn’t been anything beautiful about it, not the way slaying the Red Dragon had been. He kept looking for such a coordinated dance, the consummation of courtship. But it was just a dark alley, faceless body under him, striking over and over and over again. Flesh tearing open, bones cracking under his fists, the rush of warmth, blood splatters on his cold cheek. Nothing but short-lived ecstacy. All he had was the occasional companionship in a kill. As close as they were, Hannibal remained inaccessible. </p><p>Soft eyes screaming across the room how he wants to tear him apart. A smile that contradicted itself. Conversations leading to dead ends, where one of them had to stand up and walk the dog, or excuse themselves to the bathroom. </p><p>Was this it? Was this another game they were playing?</p><p>Frustration was gnawing his bones, he couldn’t tell what he felt anymore. It had all been so clear in the cliff. Doubt hollowed out his brain, painfully. It burned. He began to question if the events with Francis Dolarhyde had happened, or unfolded the way he remembered. Killed a man and ran off together. What was Molly doing now? Had she taken off the ring, the way he had? What would they think of him? What would Jack see if he saw him now? What did <em>he</em> see in the mirror every night? Will had stopped paying attention to his reflection, as a defense to some extent, he was afraid to find a scared man, and not Hannibal. </p><p>A downward spiral that had started with Vivaldi. He loved that dog, but it was all wrong. Most of the time it was a pile of darkness with a gentle adoration towards him. He couldn’t bear it any longer. Couldn’t escape it. There was an unsettling tenderness in the house but hostile roughness in the air. Breathing sandpaper, filing the jailhouse bars of his heart. Tasteless. He stared at Hannibal cooking and it felt tasteless. Could barely eat anymore. Barely talk. And the other man worried, in an unspoken tone. As if his distant love would feed him enough for them to keep going. But Will’s flame was flickering. Dimming, the light they held together. Doubt was an efficient suffocator.</p><p>Conjoined, they’d said, and they should’ve blurred in its entirety by now. But it was this sharpness that kept stabbing into him. If one got rid of the other, they would be killing themselves. Thoughts swarmed like flies around his decaying brain. Rotten. He felt more rotten with the passing of time. Every day he added a new organ to the graveyard. What was this game? What could he say? </p><p>If love was about hunger, he’d been in love his whole life. If love was about fulfillment, he’d never experienced it all. </p><p>Across the room, he stared, sick child-like eyes. The shadow of the other man cleaning, menacing like wildfire smoke. Shut off from the world, mindlessly scratching the dog. He felt ungrateful for the life they had. A sacrifice had been made and he was just staring at the man who threw every luxury away, the man who took care of him in the most twisted ways, the man who he loved, and loved to hate, the only other soul on this earth who understood him; he was just staring blankly at him as if they were a marriage on the verge of splitting. Were they? Worms crawled on his empty stomach. Were they? </p><p>Could Hannibal read this silence, the way he could read his?</p><p>Dark figures with endearing eyes. Of course he could. But would he ever say it? Would he ever say any of it out loud in a way it branded his skin? He wished he could put his hands on his scars and be sure of anything. He wished he could take out his heart and lungs and weigh them, how much of his body was unconditional devotion, how much was leftover doubt. Maybe this was a game they were meant to lose. A sin doomed to starve itself, or to burst from ambition. What would the end entail? His imagination seemed to have prepared itself for that question for a long time now. </p><p>Hannibal could smell the tears. Gingerly stepped into the room, setting the broom aside. Will had not noticed him, frozen on the couch.</p><p>He tilted his head, the way he always does when he is looking for answers. The worried eyes were new. Seeing his partner in such a state was enough to move him to tears. Head between his knees, sobbing, laboured breaths, flying bits of snot and tears clinging to the carpet. Vivaldi on the couch, trying to lick his arms. Every muscle paralyzed. </p><p>Hannibal had always known the unpredictable nature in Will, and the appeal of it, too. Yet in moments like these it was a curse. Will’s tears, hurt, anger, rot, they were his, too. He could tell the rot, those white flecks growing around unsuspecting fruit, bruised produce. Had he bruised Will? Had he left him unattended too long? How could he remediate this situation?</p><p>Instinct is a strange creature, and he gave into it. Arms trying to wrap themselves around, just to be pushed aside. Hannibal crouched, eye level. A pleading gaze:<em> tell me how to fix this</em>.</p><p>Will stood up, shaking, stumbling. It was caging, the heat the darkness besides him radiated. </p><p>Still next to the couch, he turned, bewildered. “Will? Where are you going?”</p><p><em>Away from you</em> was what he meant to say.</p><p> “Outside”</p><p>Fresh air. He had to wrap his head around his feelings, if it would all work in this limbo of reciprocation. But it was too cold to touch, it burned his fingerprints off. He needed fresh air and maybe an escape plan, one that would get him killed by the only hand that had scarred him. Getting rid of himself was killing Hannibal too. It had almost worked once already. Maybe that was the way they would eat each other alive, and finally be sure they are standing on the same ground.</p><p>The other man blocked the door that led way to the back garden from the kitchen. No eye contact. Could he read his thoughts? Did he know there was no coming back if he made up his mind? </p><p>“Talk to me, Will”</p><p>“I can’t”</p><p>“You can’t talk to me? “ Moving around, trying to make their gazes meet “Or you <em>won’t?</em>” </p><p>Desperately trying to force the other man to see him, there had been a slip-up in his composure; a hint of panic in the inflexion of his voice, so unlike himself. But Will could tell.</p><p>The other man started pacing, choking down the sobs, hot tears slowing down, flushed. His tongue could’ve swollen with the anguish in his speech pattern.</p><p>“You are the smoke in my head, Hannibal, I can think of you, about you, I can describe you, I can see you, I can look at you, percieve you, smell you, taste you, but my hand reaches towards you and I hold nothing. I can’t hold you, your grasp evades me. I lose you between my palms, smoke, sand, water, all forces of nature never meant to be held. Ever present but elusive. I know you can hear me but you rarely answer comprehensively.”</p><p>Hannibal had started to close in on him, as if he needed to swallow the sentences being spit into the air.</p><p>“<em>It ’s cruel.</em>”</p><p>Inches apart now, staring directly at him. Almost defiant. Almost.</p><p>“It’s just as cruel to love you than to love God.”</p><p>He wanted to reply, fumbling for words, but Will wasn’t recoiling. Instead he wrapped his arms around him, pulling him tight.</p><p>“One day, you are going to asphyxiate me, smother me, drown me, one fateful day, …and I’m going to let you. Maybe that’s the only way i’d be able to have you, even if it’s for a fleeting moment. ”</p><p>They were about to pull out of the embrace when he whispered, soothing, calm, trying to contain the other man’s shaking frame.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Will. I really am. It was never my intention to hurt you in such ways. It saddens me to hear how difficult it is for you to love me”</p><p>He burrowed his head into the crook of his neck, taking in the scent of spices from that morning’s breakfast.</p><p>“I… I didn’t mean it that w-”</p><p>Calloused hands cupping the back of Will’s head, keeping him close. Stroking his hair, delicately, bringing him out of despondence. </p><p>“Shh, now. It’s alright. That is on me. I never stopped to ask you if you felt as loved as I did. I know you know I love you. I know you know how hard it is for me to admit it in such simple terms. But the brain and the heart can find themselves connected by loose threads, too unraveled to keep them communicated.”</p><p>The storm in his head, now peaceful waves. No illusions, no masks, just them.</p><p>“I would never kill you, Will. Not anymore. I find it truer to the reality around us that you would kill me, should it come to that. And I wouldn’t blame you. You could always take the dog, claim an abduction, self defense, and go back to your life as if you’d never met me. I’d just hope you do so for the right reasons, as I do not have the luxury of a life without you.”</p><p>It clicked in his head, the other man’s erratic behaviour. The unsettling things our hearts drive us to do, because they are insecure. All the misery, the self-sabotage, the restless trappings of uncertainty, it was time to let it go. God had confirmed his love.</p><p>“H-Hannibal”</p><p>They let go of their embrace. Will’s hand caressed the side of the other man’s face, held it the way his had been held so many times. Firm, confident, warm. Leaning in for his lips, he exhaled desire.</p><p>“Can I?”</p><p>A pair of hands on his hips.</p><p>“I thought you’d never ask”</p><p>Soft and hungry as the first bite into a ripe peach. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you find that anything else needs to be tagged, please let me know.</p><p>Hope you enjoyed it, feedback is encouraged!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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